Administering an injection is a process which presents a number of risks and challenges for users and healthcare professionals, both mental and physical. Injection devices typically fall into two categories—manual devices and autoinjectors. In a conventional manual device, manual force is required to drive a medicament through a needle. This is typically done by some form of button/plunger that has to be continuously pressed during the injection. There are numerous disadvantages associated with this approach. For example, if the button/plunger is released prematurely, the injection will stop and may not deliver an intended dose. Further, the force required to push the button/plunger may be too high (e.g., if the user is elderly or a child). And, aligning the injection device, administering the injection and keeping the injection device still during the injection may require dexterity which some patients (e.g., elderly patients, children, arthritic patients, etc.) may not have.
Conventional injection devices do not provide any alignment mechanisms, which can lead to incorrect delivery depth (e.g., intradermal when it should have been sub-cutaneous) and incorrect dosing (e.g., if the medicament is delivered to an incorrect depth). Further, it is very difficult for a user to determine whether a conventional injection device is properly aligned since there is generally no feedback about alignment, and the user is required to visually approximate the orientation of the injection device relative to the injection site.
Thus, there remains a need for an improved medicament delivery device with an alignment mechanism.